By the Book

by Julia Sonneborn

  The one-minute countdown began, and Adam and I fell silent, watching as the camera panned across the crowds of people in New York.

  “It looks cold there,” I said. I tried to think what I should do when the clock hit midnight—wish Adam a Happy New Year? Give him a hug? Clink glasses again? Would Adam kiss me? He was sitting right across from me, our knees practically touching, his arm resting casually beside him. How badly I wanted to reach over and take his hand or, better yet, slip onto the couch beside him and rest my head on his shoulder. My fondest memories of our relationship had been of sitting with him just so, secure and content, his hand in mine. We’d spent one New Year’s in college in just such a way, huddled under a blanket and drinking hot chocolate, ignoring the hoots and hollers of drunken partygoers outside.

  “Yeah—I don’t miss New York winters,” Adam said. His fingers drummed the couch cushion softly, and his eyes remained fixed on the television screen.

  Definitely no interest here, I thought. He was just waiting impatiently for the ball to drop. I cursed myself for having drunk all the champagne, eyeing the empty bottle and Adam’s still half-full glass. In slow motion, I watched as the ball dropped, followed by fireworks and shot after shot of couples, young and old, kissing each other to ring in the new year. I had just turned toward Adam when my phone buzzed. A text from Rick.

  “Happy New Year!”

  “Hppy nqq yard!” I texted back. That didn’t look right.

  “Doing anything tonight?” he wrote back.

  “Nkthing.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “N

  O

  O

  !

  ”

  As I fumbled with my phone, I heard Adam go into the library to answer a call from his mother. “Prospero Año Nuevo, Mamá!” I heard him say. “Te quiero.”

  While I waited for Adam to return, I suddenly realized I was, indeed, horrifyingly, embarrassingly drunk. So drunk I needed to rest my head on a pillow for a minute lest I throw up the contents of my stomach. I closed my eyes and forced myself to take deep breaths, counting my breaths aloud.

  The last time I’d been this drunk was the night Adam and I broke up and I’d gone back to my dorm room and downed an entire bottle of peach schnapps that I found under my bed. I’d gone to bed at six a.m. and nearly slept through graduation, saved only by the angry knocking of my sister at the door. She was furious with me, as was my father, who looked at my swollen face and disheveled hair and shook his head sourly. They left right after the ceremony, skipping my graduation brunch and making no mention of the fact that I’d graduated magna cum laude, marked by a little asterisk by my name in the commencement program. I’d killed myself for that dumb asterisk, wanting to make Professor Russell and my father proud.

  In the other room, I could hear Adam continue to talk to his mother, his voice soft and soothing. He must have had a wonderful graduation, I thought enviously. I could just imagine the two of them at brunch, Adam handsome in his cap and gown, his mother beside him, bursting with pride. While they’d been celebrating, I had slipped away, alone, to the post office in Palmer Square. There, I’d dropped the engagement ring Adam had given me into a plain envelope, sealed it shut, and addressed it to Adam care of his mother. I didn’t bother insuring the contents or requesting delivery confirmation, so I never found out if Adam ever got the package. He never tried to contact me, and I was too angry and proud to reach out to him.

  From the other room, I could hear Adam wish his mother good-bye and then step out of the library and back into the living room. I forced myself to an upright position but kept my eyes closed.

  “Are you OK?” I heard Adam say from far away.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just resting my eyes a little. Don’t mind me. Ima little drunk.”

  “The bathroom’s down the hall,” he said.

  “Thanks, ’preciate it. Just gimme a minute.”

  I heard Adam walk into the kitchen and place some glasses into the sink.

  How long ago it all seemed, I thought wearily. I’d been so angry at Adam for so long, but now I just felt embarrassment and shame. I’d behaved badly. I’d humiliated myself. In the years following our breakup, I stopped searching for him online, not wanting to be reminded of the past. Best just to forget it all, I told myself. Adam’s letters, which I’d carefully saved in a shoebox, I eventually tossed into the garbage, along with every other vestige of our relationship—class notes we’d shared, movie ticket stubs, a card tucked into a bouquet of flowers Adam had gotten me for Valentine’s Day. I was sure Adam had done the same. The only thing I couldn’t bear to throw away was the copy of Persuasion Adam had given me—not so much (I told myself) because he’d given it to me but because it was a book, and I never threw away books. To toss a Jane Austen novel into the trash? Now that would be sacrilege.

  I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, it was dawn and I heard the sound of sprinklers going off outside. I sat up, disoriented and hungover. For a split second, I thought I was back in my college dorm room, fooled by the dim slant of light through the lead glass windows and the rattling sound of an old radiator. Where am I? I thought. Dully, I realized I was stretched out on Adam’s couch, and he had taken off my shoes and put a blanket over me. A glass of water and a small trash can had been placed next to my head.

  I felt my head throb painfully. I’d drooled all over the pillow, and the fabric had left indentations down the side of my face. I couldn’t remember lying down, much less falling asleep, and I wondered if there was anything else I didn’t remember. Had I said or done anything else embarrassing? My face burning, I quickly folded up the blanket, collected my shoes, and crept into the kitchen to see if Adam was up. The kitchen was dark, our two empty glasses of champagne in the sink, the champagne bottle in the recycling bin. I chugged a glass of water, spilled some on myself, tried to mop up the mess with a paper towel, then couldn’t find the trash can before eventually locating it under the kitchen sink. Everything was so tidy and organized, and I found myself stifling the urge to look through the rest of the cupboards. I peeked around the corner and saw a small laundry room with a narrow staircase leading up to the second floor. A minute later, I heard the rustle of Charlie’s tags as he appeared on top of the landing, looking down at me.

  “Shhhhhhh!” I said, putting my finger on my lips. “It’s just me.”

  Charlie scurried down the stairs and I gave him a quick pet. “Sorry I was such a lousy guest,” I whispered. I found a memo pad on the kitchen table and jotted down a quick note.

  “I let myself out. Happy New Year. Anne.”

  Before I left, I took one last look at Adam’s living quarters. The place looked immaculate, as if I’d never been there. Satisfied, I eased my way out the back door and picked my way across the damp lawn, Charlie watching me from the window all the while.

  From: Britnee

  To: Anne Corey

  Subject: ENG 220 grade

  Date: January 3

  dear mrs. cory,

  i just checked my grades online and i was very disappointed that you gave me a d+ in your poetry class. i worked really hard and wrote all the papers. i know i missed a lot of classes, but i had an undiagnosed case of mono that i’m only getting over now.

  i lost my syllabus so if you could let me know what i missed and what extra credit I can do to make it up, that would be awesome. i just applied to law school and this could really mess up my gpa. I think i at least deserve a b.

  brit

  *

  From: Stephen Culpepper

  To: Anne Corey

  Subject: Britnee Brown

  Date: January 6

  Dear Anne,

  Happy New Year! Hope you had a wonderful and recuperative winter break.

  I’m sorry to bother you, but one of your ENG 220 students from last semester, Britnee Brown, has been leaving endless messages o
n my office phone about changing her grade. I told her she could file a grade appeal, and that seemed to satisfy her, but then her father called this morning and threatened to sue if her grade wasn’t amended. The department will, of course, stand behind you, but I would very much appreciate it if you could forward me Ms. Brown’s grade breakdown as well as a list of absences to refer to, as needed.

  I am, yours faithfully,

  Steve

  * * *

  Editor, “Piers Plowman” Reader (Cambridge UP, 2011)

  Coeditor (with Ron Holbrook), Early Medieval Grammar (CLIO Press, 2006)

  Editor, Journal of Anglo-Norman Studies (2005–present)

  Member, Medium Aevum, the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature

  *

  From: Lawrence Ettinger

  To: Anne Corey

  Subject: little miss b

  Date: January 6

  You want a better GPA? You want a JD/MBA?

  You best not be MIA. You better work bitch.

  You better work bitch. You better work bitch.

  chapter fourteen

  “I MISSED YOU,” RICK SAID, giving me a bear hug. He was tan and even blonder from his time in Costa Rica.

  “Did you get a lot of writing done?” I asked.

  “Tons. It was really quite therapeutic. It’s too bad you couldn’t join. How were things over here?”

  “I’m completely exhausted,” I said. “I need a vacation from vacation. I don’t know how you make writing seem so easy—this book’s killing me.”

  “Just wait until you start your second book. That one’s the real killer.”

  “Second book? Ha! Let me finish this one first.”

  We were in my office, prepping for the start of the spring semester. Rick had another pile of applications to read for his writing workshop, and I was belatedly trying to finalize my syllabus. Usually I liked nothing more than writing up syllabi—it was like ordering a nine-course meal of all my favorite dishes—but now I was feeling uninspired and burned out.

  “What do you think if I call my nineteenth-century novel class ‘Scribbling Women: The Rise of the Female Author’?” I asked Rick.

  “You want my honest opinion?”

  “Of course!”

  “No offense, but I wouldn’t want to take that class.”

  “Why not?” I asked, hurt.

  “Well, for starters, I’m a guy. It sounds like it’s all about gender and feminism.”

  “Well, it is.”

  “You’re not thinking like a nineteen-year-old undergraduate. A nineteen-year-old undergrad doesn’t care about scribbling women, or the rise of the female author, or anything other than what time the class meets and if it requires too much reading and writing.”

  “Really?” I protested.

  “What does Larry call his Oscar Wilde class?”

  I thought for a moment. “I think he titled it ‘Girls Gone Wilde’ the last time I checked.”

  “There you go. Take it from me. Sex sells.”

  I sighed and turned to my computer, taking a break from my syllabus to scroll through the posts on my favorite celebrity blog. I clicked on a new blind item, posted under a big pink question mark:

  Has she had enough?

  They were longtime sweethearts, the golden couple. He’s an actor who’s finally broken through, playing against type in a big Hollywood blockbuster. She’s a civilian, but in some ways bigger than he is because of her Family. Think Rockefeller, not Corleone. There were rumors that the two of them were taking a break, a “conscious uncoupling,” as it were. Discretion was key. He had certain urges. She looked the other way. She assumed he was like one of the characters he’d once played, the one whose family she knew from summering on the Cape.

  Except he swings both ways. He likes them young and he likes them buff, though he’s not overly discerning. She’s fine being his beard, so long as he keeps his s—tight. But he’s getting reckless. Maybe it’s the fame going to his head, maybe the relationship has just run its course. The only problem is that he needs her more than she needs him. She could walk at any time and be fine, but he’s got two sequels lined up and an image to protect. She’s given him an ultimatum. Three strikes and you’re out.

  Hint: Not Bradley Cooper

  I gasped.

  “What is it?” Rick asked.

  “Read this,” I said, pointing to the screen. “Can you tell who it is?”

  Rick glanced at the item and shrugged. “Am I supposed to know?” he asked.

  “It’s Jack Lindsey. I mean, it’s obvious.”

  “I can’t believe you read that crap, Anne,” Rick said, turning back to his reading. “Don’t you know those tabloid rags just make stuff up? You have a PhD—you should know better.”

  “Some of these gossip blogs are really well written,” I protested. “And they’re right, a lot of the time!”

  “So if they wrote that Bigfoot was discovered on Mars, you’d believe them?”

  “That’s ridiculous. These blogs focus on celebrities.”

  “OK, so if they wrote that Tom Cruise was gay, you’d believe them?”

  “Tom Cruise is gay.”

  “What about John Travolta?”

  “He’s gay, too.”

  “Christ, do you think everybody is gay?”

  “Not everybody. Just Jack Lindsey. And Tom Cruise. And John Travolta. And Bradley Cooper. And—”

  “OK, stop,” Rick said. “You’re just proving my point.”

  I ran over to Larry’s office to show him the post. As soon as I walked in, I noticed that his Keanu Speed poster was no longer on the wall, replaced by a poster of Jack in his Jane Vampire getup.

  “You broke up with Keanu?” I cried.

  “It was time,” Larry said, sorrowfully. “I told him I think we should see other people.”

  “You’re heartless!”

  “We’re just on two different paths right now. You know, if you really love someone, sometimes you just have to let them go.”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Keanu is such a better actor than Jack.”

  Larry clapped his hands over his ears.

  “Hey, look,” I said, pulling up the blog post on his computer. “I just read this. What do you think?”

  “Oh, fudge,” he said, scanning the article. “It sounds like Jack, doesn’t it?”

  “I mean, a lot of the details fit . . . the wife from a prominent family, the Kennedy reference, the sequels—”

  “But it says he ‘likes them young and he likes them buff.’ That’s not me. I’m old and skinnyfat.” Larry flexed his bicep for sad effect. “Oh God, what if he’s stepping out on me?”

  “OK, hold on, it also says he’s ‘not overly discerning.’ ”

  “Oh, great. Awesome. Thanks, Anne. That makes me feel so much better. He likes them young and buff, but he’ll settle for a middle-aged fatty patatty.”

  I ignored Larry. “And then there’s the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ reference,” I said. “Jack used to play baseball in college. It’s gotta be him.”

  “Wow,” Larry said admiringly. “You sound just like you’re close-reading a poem. Your students would be so impressed.”

  “I wonder who’s leaking the info. Do you think it’s someone in his camp?”

  “I should text him,” Larry said, reaching for his burner phone.

  “Don’t!” I said. “What if your phone’s compromised?”

  “Oh my goodness, Anne! You’re worse than Jack. I just want to check in, NBD.”

  “You should be careful,” I said. “You never know who might be hacking your phone.”

  “OK, Little Miss Paranoid,” he said, putting his phone aside. “I mean, what’s a little gay rumor, anyway? Jack should be thrilled. Every great actor’s been suspected of being gay—it means he’s finally made it!”

  *

  LARRY HAD MANAGED TO download a bootleg copy
of Jane Vampire from the Internet, and for the next several weeks, the two of us watched and rewatched Jane Vampire from a makeshift theater Larry had set up in his living room. He would draw the drapes over all his windows, project the movie onto a blank wall, and pop fresh popcorn that he’d place in a bucket between us. After the third viewing, I tried to beg off, but Larry chastised me. “But it’s research! For your epilogue!” he cried. At our next viewing, he assigned himself the role of closed-captioning assistant, pausing the video so I could record the dialogue while Larry ogled Jack.

  “You can press play again,” I’d tell Larry.

  “What?” he’d ask. “Oh! You sure you don’t need to see it again?”

  “There’s no dialogue in this part, Larry. You can fast- forward it.”

  “What?! And skip all the best parts? Absolutely not.”

  I soon discovered there was no need for a written transcript anyway because Larry had memorized all the lines.

  “Am I hideous, Jane?” Jack/Rochester would say on the screen, and Larry would respond, in a quavering voice, “Very, sir, you always were, you know.”

  “You must stay! I swear it!” Jack/Rochester would cry.

  “I tell you I must go!” Larry would wail, pitching himself onto the couch and launching into a sobbing soliloquy. “Do you think I am a zombie? An undead being without feelings? Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you—and full as much heart! Let me go!” He would gaze despairingly at Jack/Rochester on the screen and pantomime stabbing himself in the heart.

  “I feel like I’m at The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” I said in the middle of one such performance.

  “Keep working on your epilogue,” Larry said, hushing me.

  “Ugh, don’t remind me,” I groaned. “I still have to write my acknowledgments, too.”

  “You better make them good,” Larry said, his eyes still glued to the screen. “It’s the only part of your book that I’m guaranteed to read, word for word.”

  I’d always figured the acknowledgments would be the easiest part of the book to write, a welcome break from the intellectual heavy lifting I’d been doing. Instead, with twenty-four hours remaining until my deadline, I found myself in my office, staring at the empty screen, wondering how not to sound long-winded or trite or, worst of all, ungrateful. I’d pulled several all-nighters to complete the manuscript and felt woozy with fatigue. Taking a deep breath, I began by giving the requisite thanks to my editor and publisher. I thanked all the librarians and archivists who’d facilitated my research and tracked down sources. I thanked the fellowship committee that gave me a small research travel grant. I thanked my department chair and dean. I thanked Ellen Russell. I thanked my father and sister. I thanked all the students who had taken my classes and helped me think through my ideas.